Notes From Me

Friday, May 27, 2005

Tomorrow's Stories

Two days ago I was sitting at Mekong, a restaurant in an old building I stopped at because of its antquity, when I remembered two sisters I had met in Bangkok. They were from Canada, their parents born in China, and one of them had said she lived in New York City. I knew she worked at a sandwich shop, nothing more. I was thinking momentarily of running into her, and then the impossibility of it or of finding a sandwich place without knowing its name. Plus, I couldn't remember hers. Sitting outside Mekong in the wind and light rain, because it is late May and I won't be deterred (and it is not as cold as Amsterdam, so it is not cold), I wrote down all the names of my Japanese students I could remember. I remembered that I had a student named Enzo, which was never funny while I was there.

Last night after visiting the new Moma (which is a fantastic place though they charge twenty unwarrented dollars to go in), I was eating bi bim bap with Staying Pinoy, whom it was a pleasure to meet, when I looked up to see that the person pouring water for me was the very same one I had met in Bangkok; she works, only for one week more, at the Korean restaurant we were in.

Much needed inspirations. Also from my cousin who just published a book (about 80s music, but a published book all the same; it is also a game you play for points), and from his father my uncle, who actually gets paid to tell stories. There are very few artists in my family, but this uncle makes up for it. We told each other stories all day on Monday. I learned that another uncle used to be a detective on a homicide squad (before he got a job with Exxon; that part I knew).

And my uncle told a story of a woman in the 1800s who walked across America from Seattle to New York. Her family had become extremely poor and was in danger of losing their ranch, so she decided to take the offer of some people in the garment district of NYC who were offering ten thousand dollars to anyone who would walk across the country wearing their company's clothing. So, even though at that time women were not seen about on their own except it very unusual circumstances, she did it. But, almost there, she turned her ankle and arrived three days past the deadline. They wouldn't give her any money, not even enough to go back home.

Here is something I will post after having read a post of Turtlechild's, in which was included:

librarychik has posted a meme over at swimming in it, which gives the following instructions:1. Grab the nearest book.2. Open the book to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence.4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.

(I just opened a book of stories published by NPR to find that page 123 merely says, Slapstick.)

Okay:

I went back to the low-pitched tent in the shelter of a dune. I lay down beside Sergeant Hamano, and closed my eyes. This time sleep came to me--a deep sleep that all but pulled me by the ankles to the bottom of the sea.

-Haruki Murakami

posted by lux at 7:04 AM
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